{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1183",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1183,
    "subject": "Imps",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1998-10-15T11:36:47+00:00",
    "last": "1998-10-15T13:20:14+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0020-0017@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at coredcs.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-10-15T13:20:14+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Imps",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "When Severian as a very young boy runs his first errand to the Witches\nTower, he tells us \"I was ushered into the presence of an old woman who sat\nin the only chair I had yet seen there, staring through a glass tabletop at\nwhat appeared to be an artificial landscape inhabited by hairless, crippled\nanimals.\" \n\nBut what might these hairless, crippled animals be?\n\nOf course, Severian at this age may not fully appreciate what he's seeing,\nbut it does seem the Cumaean may be attempting some sort of clairvoyance,\nlooking at something a good deal away in time or space.\n\nIf there were only one hairless, crippled animal, I'd suggest it was the\nbottled mandragora Severian finds in the long-abandoned autarch's quarters\nin the Citadel. But there's more than one.\n\nNow to backtrack a little. Of the over 400 characters in New Sun, only two\nof them speak in blank verse, and I think this is meant to suggest the two\nare linked. They are the Cumaean and Famulimus. So could therefore the\nCumaean be attempting to link up clairvoyantly with Famulimus, who I\npropose is a relative? Famulimus and Barbatus are named, after all, after\nRoman gods who look after children--just as they're looked over by\nOssipago, their robot babysitter. In other words they're children and the\nCumaean is their mother. As for the artificial landscape and immobility I'd\nlike to suggest Famulimus and Barbatus are in their refrigerated berth\naboard the Quasar/Flying Cloud, which as we see in UotNS, appears to be\nfilled with water--hence their immobility.\n\nThat or they're the prototypes for Josepha's toy imp, which is replaced by\na frog when Thecla and Thea are young girls (not that the two are mutually\nexclusive).\n\nRobert Borski"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0020-0018@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "John Gersten",
        "address": "jgersten at slip.net"
      },
      "date": "1998-10-15T11:36:47+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Imps",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0020-0017@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "When Severian as a very young boy runs his first errand to the Witches\nTower, he tells us \"I was ushered into the presence of an old woman who sat\nin the only chair I had yet seen there, staring through a glass tabletop at\nwhat appeared to be an artificial landscape inhabited by hairless, crippled\nanimals.\"\n\nBut what might these hairless, crippled animals be?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I always thought this was just a large microscope, which Sev would perforce\nsee as a thing of wonder.  After a quick glance, I could see someone with no\nknowledge of bacteriology or cell biology interpreting this as an\n\"artificial landscape inhabited by hairless, crippled animals.\"\n\n\nOf course, this \"view-from-above of crippled animals\" may well be how the\nspacefaring characters in the book regard the denizens of Urth (or even how\nWolfe views them <grin>)....\n\nJohn"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}